The present invention relates to caching content at a network entity, and more specifically to using social network connection information to select a network entity to serve as a gateway and cache for accessing secure content by peer devices.
Networks generally have a limited amount of bandwidth to serve devices connected to a network. To serve data to devices connected to a network, a network gateway/proxy server/access point generally receives a request for data from a user device, transmits the request to a data source indicated in the request, receives the requested data, and provides the requested data to the requesting device. In some cases, usage patterns in a network indicate that different users are requesting the same content simultaneously. For small amounts of content (e.g., static webpages with limited or no multimedia content embedded in the webpage), repeated requests for the same content may have a limited effect on bandwidth availability for other users. However, if multiple users request the same multimedia content, such as live video content, repeated requests for the same content may reduce the amount of bandwidth available in the network. This reduction in bandwidth may result, for example, in degraded audio/video quality for the users requesting the same multimedia content and/or reductions in service availability for other users in the network.
To reduce the amount of bandwidth used in a network, a proxy server (e.g., in a network gateway or access point) can cache newly requested content. When a proxy server receives a request for content from a user device (e.g., a cell phone, handheld computer, tablet, laptop computer, etc.), the proxy server generally examines a cache at the proxy server to determine if the proxy server can serve the requested content without requesting the content from a remote content provider. If the requested content is cached (i.e., has been previously requested by another user device), the proxy server provides the cached content to the requesting user device without requesting that content from a remote source. By reducing duplicate requests for the same data, a caching system at a network entity can free up network bandwidth for other devices to request other data.
In some cases, user devices may request multimedia content using an encrypted connection. For example, requests for video content shared on a social network may be encrypted before being transmitted from a user device to a content provider. Because these requests are encrypted, the proxy server may not be able to identify the requested content or store the requested content at the proxy server for use in providing the same content to other user devices. Even though many users may request the same data from a content provider, the proxy server may request the content from the content provider for each requesting user instead of serving the content from a cache at the proxy server.